Cta Demotes 2 Over Rail Delays

March 09, 1988|By Gary Washburn, Transportation writer.

Two senior Chicago Transit Authority rail maintenance officials have been suspended without pay and demoted for ``willful misconduct`` that kept scores of malfunctioning CTA rail cars out of service after a snowstorm last month, officials said Tuesday.

Frank Venezia, acting manager of equipment engineering and maintenance, has been hit with a 30-day suspension and transferred out of operations. Richard Lorimer, superintendent of rail vehicle terminals, has received a 29- day suspension and was assigned as a rail maintenance instructor. Venezia is paid $56,500 a year, Lorimer $50,000.

``In the face of the emergency we were having, losing all that equipment, they should have taken measures to deal with the problem,`` said Frank Wilson, the CTA`s head of operations. ``What I was getting was a bunch of excuses as to why we were having the problem-poor equipment and a mutiny by the troops.``

But Wilson said he found that maintenance workers, who Venezia and Lorimer said refused to work overtime, in fact were never asked to do so.

Attempts to reach the two men for comment were unsuccessful.

Venezia, 43, is a 21-year CTA veteran. Lorimer has been with the authority for 26 years.

Also on Tuesday, a federal judge held John Powers, a CTA attorney who is suing the agency, in contempt of court and imposed a $150-a-day fine until Powers discloses the source of a sensitive internal transit authority memo.

District Judge Milton Shadur stayed his ruling until March 21 to allow for an appeal.

Powers repeatedly has refused to disclose the identity of the person who provided him with a copy of a memo dated Sept. 15, 1986, written by Joyce Hughes, the CTA`s general attorney. In the document, Hughes outlined how her department could be reorganized by firing or demoting existing employees and bringing in new ones while still complying with state law.

Powers, who had been associate general attorney, was demoted and suspended last year by Hughes. He later filed a reverse-discrimination suit, contending that he was disciplined because he is white.